Reporter Andrea James could use a new job

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Andrea James, a 27-year-old business reporter for the gravely ill Seattle Post-Intelligencer, doesn't want your pity.

But she might need a new job, considering how things have been going for her employer.

You could call James a poster child for the tragic decline of the advertising-driven newspaper industry -- and, yes, it is a uniquely American tragedy when an industry rich in public service and steeped in nostalgia crumbles.

Privately held Hearst, which owns the Post-Intelligencer, put the newspaper up for sale last Friday and threatened to halt printing in 60 days. The parent may decide to salvage the dire situation by trying to convert the P-I, as the daily is known, into an Internet-only operation.

The Post-Intelligencer reported in a memo to the staff that the paper's management is looking for suggestions from employees on "how to maintain and grow our online audience so we might have the competitive advantage in the market" and "ideas to help us drive the revenue side of the business." The item was featured on the Romenesko web site.

The Post-Intelligencer's epitaph, if it comes to that, might be found in Gerald B. Nelson's 1977 book, "Seattle: The Life and Times of An American City," published by Knopf. Nelson wrote: "The Seattle spirit. Its soft, sweet blanket covers only achievers; the rest do not belong."

James' saga

I first encountered James, a native of New Jersey, about a year ago after I wrote a story imploring my alma mater, Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, not to follow through on a potential plan to change the name of the institution to something more jazzy and contemporary. I suspected that the school was trying to goose alumni into donating money.

James, who is, ahem, a considerably more recent graduate of Medill's master's program than I, emailed to say she agreed with me. Naturally, I knew then that she was quite smart.

I began to follow her career as a reporter and blogger at the Post-Intelligencer. It became clear she loved her job. It was nice to see someone starting out with such idealism.

That optimism, unfortunately, has given way to realism. So, when I wanted to take a measure of the pulse of the Post-Intelligencer, I sought out James.

Scoop hound

James wrote for the campus paper at American University in Washington, where she spent her undergraduate years. "I fell in love with getting scoops," she laughed.

When I asked her what she learned in graduate school, she answered with the acquired wisdom of someone twice her age: "At Medill, I learned how to have moxie. [But] Medill didn't teach me how to handle a closing newspaper."

She got her first "real" job in journalism when she went to work for the Mobile (Ala.) Press-Register, a Newhouse paper, in 2005. "Hurricane Katrina struck five months later," she said. "I covered its effect on the economy and the government's response."

Katrina was the first time she remembered seeing "a bunch of reporters staring in horror at a television." The next time she had the same experience was even more personal.

That occurred when KING, a Seattle television station, reported that the Post-Intelligencer was in danger of folding.

"We were putting the paper to bed," she said glumly in a telephone interview earlier this week. "I just said, 'What the f***?! What the f***?!"

"Editors were just as dumbfounded," she said. "Editors went running down to the M.E. [managing editor], and it turned out he didn't know, either."

Closer to home

James, who frequently writes about such Seattle-area-based companies as Starbucks
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Costco
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Nordstrom
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and Amazon
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pointed out: "Funny or ironic, I've been writing a lot of the labor stories in the Seattle region -- now I get to know how it feels. I feel like I'm losing a loved one."

To appreciate James' perspective, understand that her mother had a fatal heart attack when Andrea was 12 years old. Her father died a year later. James subsequently moved in with her older sister's family. And she persevered.

On June 3, 1999, when James was 17 years old, the Philadelphia Inquirer published a piece that began: "At 13, when most teenage girls are dealing with friends, boys and the turmoil of adolescence, Andrea James was dealing with the death of her parents."

James was honored as a "hometown hero" by the Willingboro Education Association in New Jersey, based on her "lengthy list of extracurricular activities and academic accomplishments," as the Inquirer put it.

Her husband, Derek, now 34, was diagnosed with cancer the first time when he was 26 and then again at 29. His condition is stable, though he's not yet in remission, she reported.

Career prospects

As an old-fogy journalist, I tried to reassure James about her career prospects, blurting out protectively: "You're still young. ... You have a lot going for you." Blah, blah, blah -- they're all words that may be nice to hear but ultimately don't change a thing.

"I know I'll be OK," she said, firmly but politely brushing off my up-with-people tone. "But I love these people."

James has warm feelings for Seattle, too.

"I remember driving through town and seeing the Space Needle, and thinking, 'This city is mine,' " she said.

James, who dreams of a New York Times
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reporting job someday, or one with The Wall Street Journal, or at Time Warner Inc.'s
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Time magazine, has done a lot of soul searching lately. (The Journal is, like MarketWatch, a unit of News Corp.
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)

Looking back on her career, to this point, she says: "You are covering some of the biggest, most iconic brands, which is great for a business reporter. I've fallen in love with this city. It's what I love about America. I took my first job in Alabama because I was a Northeast girl and I thought, 'I don't really know my country at all.' "

James ponders the future, too, and has reached a conclusion about journalism: "I feel like I was born to do this work," she said. "I'm so curious. Give me a job where I can get paid to be nosy as hell, get my curiosity satisfied and write every day. I can't imagine going into another field."

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